


I Know Places

by notaruka



Series: All We Know [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Humor, Jedi Rey, Romance, Scoundrel Ben Solo, endless bickering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-05-20 09:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14891993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaruka/pseuds/notaruka
Summary: There is only one thing that the First Order are concerned with today. The announcement had spread across the galaxy like untamed wildfire.Ben Solo’s bounty is astronomical, and it is solely up to Rey to escort him safely home - no matter how difficult he intends on making it for her.





	1. They got the cages, they got the boxes

It is dark inside the cantina - a stark contrast to the blinding light of the desert sun outside.

A diverse assortment of life forms congregates within the cramped, dingy establishment - so disparate in shape, size, background, and language, but all seeking the same form of respite.

Refuge from the sun, or light, or any other reminder that there is a life outside of alcoholism and debauchery.

The cloaked figure who enters and slinks its way through the unruly crowd must be the first living being to arrive here in search of something, as opposed to in escape of it. They are barely noticed by the surrounding patrons, who are much too engrossed in their own drinks, pillaging, or fistfights to take note of any new individual who squeezes their way in through the open door.

Two hands reach up to remove the hood from atop a head, revealing the face of a young, stoic woman beneath. She approaches the bar slowly but purposefully, her gaze steadily fixed on the bartender behind the counter. His sour, unwelcoming expression does nothing to discourage her, as she leans tenaciously over the counter and utters a name into his ear.

He raises his chin contemptuously, peering down at her with immense suspicion. “Lando?” he echoes in a cautious murmur, narrowing his eyes at her.

She nods sternly, her jaw set with resolution.

He smirks.

With a momentous click, he swiftly cocks and raises a blaster to the visitor’s face, aiming it directly between her eyes.

While the patrons around her all react with a wide berth, the woman does not flinch, steadfastly staring past the weapon pointed only a few inches from her nose and fixating solely on its wielder.

“Lando’s not taking visitors today,” the bartender hisses venomously. “I suggest you go back the way you came if you want to leave this cantina alive.”

His challenger merely blinks at him, unfazed by his audacious threat. “You will take me to Lando,” she states evenly.

The bartender gazes back at her in astonishment. “What?” he splutters, inexplicably lowering his blaster.

“You will take me to Lando now,” she reiterates. “And you will do it discreetly.”

A few blinks and a shake of the head, and the bartender suddenly straightens, his eyes glazing over in a stupefied daze. “I will take you to Lando now, and I will do it discreetly.”

He slips away from the counter as instructed - silently, inconspicuously - and leads her to the back of the building, through several archways, and down many winding corridors, before finally arriving at a tall, rusty, steel door. “It is locked,” he informs her, almost matter-of-factly.

“Break it down,” she orders without hesitation.

He obediently complies, taking advantage of his own huge, hulking figure to slam his way through the door. It gives in like it is made of plaster, crumpling feebly to the hard, sandy floor. They are immediately sprayed with a barrage of blaster bolts.

The woman reacts expeditiously, whipping out a lightsaber from under her cloak and igniting it with an emphatic whir. She deftly swings it in fluid patterns of self-defence, deflecting bolt after bolt in all random directions about her body. It is somewhere around the tenth or eleventh blaster shot that the cascade finally ceases, leaving behind a thick, murky cloud of smoke.

She hears his genial laughter before she discerns him through the haze.

“So this is what Luke has sent to me,” Lando Calrissian chuckles heartily, emerging from the shroud of lingering smoke slowly curling past his form. “The famous Rey of Jakku.”

Rey stares back at him impassively, unresponsive to his provocative remark. She wordlessly sheathes her lightsaber and peers nonchalantly over at the bartender, who is standing idly by on the other side of the room, miraculously unscathed. With an almost imperceptible nod of her head, she dismisses him.

Lando smirks fondly at the young woman in front of him, the sleaziness in his expression punctuated by the thin, snazzy moustache adorning his upper lip. “Lando,” he introduces himself, swaggering up to her and taking her by the hand. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.

She rolls her eyes as he bends down to press a chivalrous kiss to the back of her hand. “Do you have what I came for?” she demands impatiently.

“Young ladies are so forthright these days,” he remarks wryly, shooting her a wink. “May I first apologise for the rather unceremonious welcome into my office? You must understand that I’m feeling quite touchy today, of all days, considering the...sensitive cargo I’m to deliver to you this afternoon.”

“And where is this ‘cargo’?” she questions, once again cutting to the chase.

He finally acquiesces, releasing her hand and gesturing towards a closed door in the corner of this grimy, chaotic mess of a room he calls an office. “Right behind here.”

Her eyes instantly shift from the middle-aged man in front of her to her new target across the room. She approaches it with slow, deliberate steps, instinctively reaching out a searching hand. The closet door barely requires a nudge of her fingertips before it effortlessly sweeps open, revealing her object of pursuit within.

A young, dark-haired man glares up at her with even darker eyes from where he is hunkered down on the closet floor, furiously thrashing around in vain protest against his unyielding restraints. His wrists and ankles are securely shackled with metal handcuffs, his knees are bound to his chest by rope, and his mouth is definitively sealed with masking tape. All he can do is glower irately at his two captors as they tower over him.

“This is what you guys were after, right?” Lando mutters, grinning affectionately down at the squirming man on the floor of his closet. He leans down with his hands on his knees and teases, “You’re a hot commodity today, kiddo.”

The man growls a muffled, unintelligible response that would have been a vulgar slur if his lips were uninhibited.

The Jedi Knight, Rey, scowls faintly down at him, secretly perturbed by the tumultuous energy radiating off of this man. His gaze is wild and frenzied behind the tufts of disheveled hair curling over his eyes. Even in this powerless hunch, he is clearly very large in build, his biceps swelling with every defiant wriggle of his torso. He is the personification of a ticking time bomb, or a long-dormant volcano ready to erupt at only a moment’s notice.

“In all seriousness,” Lando whispers, glancing over his own shoulder warily, “we’d best get him onto your ship as fast as we can. I can’t guarantee you that there aren’t some other folks out there who’ve also traced him back here and are heading this way at this very moment.”

She tears her gaze away from the man on the floor, who is, by then, staring up at her intently. “You’re right,” she murmurs inscrutably. “Put him in a box.”

* * *

The cloaked figure does not exit the way she came. Lando shows her to the back exit of his cantina, and she glides right through it, elegantly levitating the box of “cargo” in front of her as she proceeds. Though her ship is only a few yards away, she and Lando make the fatal mistake of assuming that the path to it would be empty. It is siesta hour in this part of the planet, but as Rey calmly loads her cargo with a swift wave of her hand, she fails to notice the two wandering Twi’leks who’ve snuck out from their designated huts in rebellious disobedience of their mother’s strict curfew, and who immediately recognise the levitating box as the outcome of a Force ability.

There is only one thing that the Jedi and the First Order are concerned with today - the announcement had spread across the entire galaxy like untamed wildfire.

Ben Solo’s bounty is astronomical, and it seems as if it may be within their grasp.

* * *

It is almost silent on the ship.

Rey composedly pilots the vessel out of the atmosphere, her expression cool and unbothered.

Unbothered, in particular, by the incessant groans and bangs of protest emanating from the box at the back end of the ship.

Once in the stillness of deep space, Rey promptly switches the controls to autopilot and leaps out of her seat. She pads her way soundlessly out of the cockpit and into the cargo area, blinking expressionlessly down at the loud, restless box before her. With a flick of her wrist, she unlatches the top, revealing a very incensed, shackled Ben Solo inside. She regards him with a barely discernible expression of intrigue, tilting her head to the side infinitesimally. “I hope you know your family is very worried about you,” she tells him flatly.

He scowls, stilling in reaction to her words, his demeanour darkening.

“It didn’t have to come to this,” she mentions, “but it appears you are too stubborn to know what’s good for you.”

His scathing retort is suppressed by the masking tape over his mouth.

“I’ll let you out of the box, but I’ll have to restrain you against a chair. Master Skywalker warned me that you’re unlikely to behave,” she explains, a tinge of resentment colouring her tone.

His response is muffled again, but she thinks it sounds like he is scoffing, “Master Skywalker.”

Now in the safety and quiet of her own ship and floating through the depths of space, Rey feels much freer to revert to her usual, more talkative self. “You know, I could’ve left you in there for much longer,” she comments pointedly. “I still need to figure out where the Resistance base is before setting the course for light speed. I can’t seem to reach them, and the homing beacon has been acting up. So be grateful that I prioritised your comfort over that!”

He stares at her unresponsively, as if taken aback by her abrupt shift in behaviour.

“I’m Rey, by the way,” she says, as she dismantles the rest of the box. “I’m from Jakku. Master Skywalker found me when I was a little girl.”

A curious look flits across his face.

“I was waiting for a family who would never return. He saved me from a life of unending loneliness,” she reveals earnestly. “I would do anything for him - including getting you back home safely.” She narrows her eyes at him. “No matter how difficult you’re going to make it for me.”

He lowers his eyebrows, his gaze intensifying in affirmation of her last sentence. _You bet I will._

Before she can lift him from the floor and into a more comfortable position on a nearby bench, the ship’s proximity alert blares raucously overhead, interrupting her.

She quickly abandons him on the floor of the cargo area and sprints back to the cockpit, urgently scanning her eyes across the myriad of control screens. Her breath catches in her throat when she discovers that they are being pursued by another, much bigger ship, rapidly gaining on them from the direction of the same planet they’d just escaped.

Rey cusses under her breath and hastily slides back into the pilot’s seat, just as the pursuant ship begins its bombardment of offensive gunfire.

Her ship, only small in relative size, teeters precariously upon the first inopportune strike, eliciting an irritated groan from Ben Solo in the back, who was surely knocked violently around on the floor by the momentum. She haphazardly wrenches the ship back upright, cringing at the aimless see-saw motion of her own slipshod flying.

Suddenly, her ship stalls to a halt, the lights on the controls panel all stuttering off. Every subsequent push of a button or steer of the yoke is utterly futile.

“No!” Rey hisses, hastily scrambling out of the cockpit. She ignores Ben Solo’s incoherent growls of protest as she enters the cargo area and snatches up a crowbar. In one corner of the room, she jabs the crowbar into a cranny at her feet and heaves a small section of the floor open, revealing a smuggling compartment beneath. She whirls around to face him. “You’re going in here.”

He cannot object strongly enough.

* * *

The two sister Twi’leks warily approach the ship they’d just ensnared into their hangar, armed to the teeth with a hearty melange of gadgets and weapons.

“You go for Solo. I will take the Jedi,” the older one proposes, cradling her favourite two-handed melee weapon to her chest.

They both hold their breaths as they draw nearer to the ship, which is much too still and silent to approach with anything but unease. Once within sufficient range, the older sister gasps as she discovers what she recognises to be the boarding ramp already unfurled.

Someone has already disembarked, and they’ve somehow completely missed it.

The undeniable buzz of a lightsaber thrums behind them, and the younger Twi’lek is suddenly aglow with blue when the weapon is suspended threateningly over her neck. She shrieks as the Jedi Knight seizes her from behind.

Her sister snarls venomously at their opponent, her eyes ablaze with fury as she points her weapon at her.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Rey warns them equably, levelling a stern gaze at the older sister. “I won’t hurt you. You just need to let us go.”

The Twi’lek merely glares at her, her expression betraying no indication of compliance nor defiance. There is a very long, sustained period of tense silence before she finally acquiesces, lowering her weapon and slackening her stance.

“Good,” Rey says. “Now-“

The angry growl of the Twi’lek in her arms interrupts her - as does the sting from the thick needle that is aggressively jabbed into her thigh.

Rey gasps and stumbles backwards, relinquishing the Twi’lek from her hold. Her limbs sag with numbness as she crumbles to the floor, her head swinging with an increasingly heavy weight. She mentally curses her own inexperience and naivety, right before her cheek hits the floor.

* * *

The tranquilliser isn’t strong - it is only a few minutes later that Rey comes to, but she is still too weak to do anything more than register her surroundings behind weighty eyelids.

She is being dragged by the leg down the length of the hangar, drowsily attempting to tune in to the Twi’leks’ hushed, panicked squabbling.

“It doesn’t make any sense. He should be in there. What else would a Jedi be doing on our planet on a day like this?” one of them whispers insistently.

“The box is opened. He must have escaped. On a ship that small, we would have definitely found him,” the other whispers back. “You sure you checked the smuggling compartment?”

“Of course,” her sister replies. “He’s here. On our ship. He must be.”

Rey almost jerks with alarm, but luckily represses the instinct.

There is only one smuggling compartment in that whole, tiny ship. If the Twi’leks didn’t find him, then their deduction must be correct.

Somehow, Ben Solo escaped.

She can feel her limbs humming with sensation as consciousness seeps back into her body, her eyes frantically scanning her surroundings as she devises a getaway plan.

As if on cue, the tug on her leg abruptly loosens.

One Twi’lek after the other collapses to the ground in a single heap, the thuds of their bodies hitting the floor following the echoey bangs of hard metal striking the backs of their heads.

Ben Solo stands triumphantly over all three of his hunters, Rey’s crowbar swinging listlessly in one hand. Without hesitation, he carelessly discards the crowbar with a clang against the concrete floor, before proceeding to loot one of the unconscious Twi’leks for weapons.

Rey smirks, pushing herself up onto her feet and dusting off her hands. “Well done,” she commends, impressed by his resourcefulness.

He ignores her, straightening with a machine blaster hoisted over his shoulder and a pistol in each hand. His head is ducked as he surveys the sister Twi’leks on the ground, gently nudging them with a foot to confirm their debilitation.

“By the way,” she pipes up, “how did you get out?”

She barely has the opportunity to finish verbalising her question before he promptly raises a pistol to her and fires, never once even bothering to spare a glance in her direction.

For the second time within that hour, Rey blacks out.


	2. Loose lips sink ships all the damn time

The violent jerk of the ship startles her awake.

She whips her head around wildly, frenetically scanning her surroundings. With relief, she realises that she is back within the confines her own ship - but with dismay, she finds herself tautly bound to the passenger seat with rope.

Rey makes to scream infuriated profanities at the man piloting her ship beside her, but her lips are sealed definitively shut by masking tape.

“Ah, you’re awake,” he remarks smugly, casting a sidelong smirk at her.

She is momentarily confounded by the sound of his unmuffled voice - so much deeper and huskier than she’d expected. But her surprise is short-lived, quickly replaced by outrage as her most recent memories come flooding back to her. “You scoundrel!” she struggles to articulate past the gag over her mouth. “You shot me!”

“I stunned you,” he corrects her, able to deduce her meaning by the cadence of her tone. “And just be glad I didn’t leave you to die on that ship with the rest of the bounty hunters.”

“I am not a bounty hunter,” she grumbles irately. “I was sent by your mother and uncle to rescue you from the millions of _actual_ bounty hunters who are after your head at this very moment!”

He glances over at her amusedly. “Sorry, didn’t get that.”

She screeches incandescently in reaction, thrashing impotently in her seat.

“Whoa, there. You’re pretty bad-tempered for a Jedi,” he mocks her, the patronisation in his tone immensely aggravating to her. “Careful, anger is a slippery slope to the _Dark Side_.”

She pants furiously at him, her shoulders heaving with rage.

“Isn’t that what Luke always says?” he continues derisively. “Anger, sadness, love, hate... As long as it’s a human emotion, it belongs to the Dark Side. Right?”

His words are indeed a harsh reminder to her that she is forgoing too much of her emotional control for a seemly Jedi - but at the same time, they are so provocative that they only serve to exacerbate her anger.

“Where are we going?” she demands hotly.

“ _You_ are going to the nearest inhabitable planet,” he answers pointedly. “And where I’m going is none of your business.”

“It’s exactly my business!” she retorts.

He chuckles, her fiery spirit - especially for a Jedi - quite refreshing to him. “I’m insulted that Luke would send such an untrained, unbalanced Jedi to collect me.”

She inhales deeply as he taunts her, closing her eyes in ardent concentration. Through the Force, she searches for the sharpest tool in the vicinity, probing every nook and cranny of the cockpit with invisible fingers.

“I guess I’m not important enough for him to send one of his apter students,” Ben Solo muses, arrogantly persisting with his volley of condescending jibes.

She ignores him, latching onto the can opener she remembers leaving beside her stock of food supplies.

“Though I suppose one shouldn’t expect much civility from a Jakku junk trader,” he presses on.

Rey curls her upper lip belligerently as she feels the rope around her torso loosening.

“A thought just occurred to me,” he says, barking out a laugh. “How ironic would it be if the closest inhabitable planet was Jakku?”

Wrath churns in her chest like molten lava. She slowly peels the masking tape from her own lips.

“What a bittersweet, full-circle-“

He doesn’t get to finish his train of thought.

She cuts him off with an animalistic roar, pouncing on him viciously and wrangling the yoke from his grasp.

“Are you insane?” he splutters incredulously, skidding off of the pilot’s seat as Rey sharply veers the ship to one side. “What are you doing?”

“Taking my ship back!” she spits, swiftly flicking the controls to autopilot before hurling him across the room with just one suspended arm.

His back collides hard with the wall, and he groans painfully as he slumps to the floor. He darts his eyes up to meet hers with mad ferocity, that same, manic energy she’d seen in him now back in full force. “You really wanna do this?” he challenges, slowly rising to his feet.

She stares back at him with unbroken determination, her indignation towards him much too potent for her to find him the least bit intimidating.

_Though I suppose one shouldn’t expect much civility from a Jakku junk trader._

The ghost of his words fuels the flames of hatred inside of her, and she charges at him with a hoarse, enraged battle cry. She calls her old quarterstaff from across the room and catches it in her hands, swinging it fiercely at his head.

He lithely dodges it, lunging sideways, before twisting around to seize it in his own grasp. She reflexively knees him in the abdomen, yanking her weapon back from his fingers as he staggers backward from the contact. Her unrelenting quarterstaff takes another swing at him, narrowly missing his ear as he ducks to the side. She stumbles forward from the momentum, whitch leaves him an opening to tackle her and plunge them both onto the floor.

Through their brawling they migrate outside of the cockpit, to the relatively more spacious arena of the passenger area. The two combatants wrestle chaotically on the floor as they feverishly grapple over the lengthy quarterstaff. Rey bares her teeth at Ben before whipping one end of the quarterstaff across his cheek, eliciting a furious moan from him through clenched teeth. He recovers quickly, knocking the quarterstaff completely from her grasp and apprehending her across the waist. His massive frame and brute strength are favourable to his advantage as he pins her under his weight, entrapping her in his arms. With only her humble physique, so petite in comparison, she is powerless against his brawn. A dormant instinct dating all the way back to her Jakku days awakens inside of her, like a feral creature finally liberated from its cage.

She glances down at the forearm braced over her chest and impulsively digs her teeth into it.

“Argh!” Ben shouts in pain, instantly withdrawing. He rolls away onto his side and shoots a look of abhorrence at her, appalled by the barbarity of her action. “Really?” he spits, affronted.

She glowers at him savagely, promptly holding out a hand to summon her last resort. The lightsaber that he had so futilely attempted to stash away flies out from the inside pocket of his dark, leather jacket and meets her open palm. With a harsh thrum, it ignites to only a few inches from his nose, illuminating his face with its trademark blue.

He reactively freezes, levelling a wary gaze at her.

She gradually heaves herself up onto her feet, keeping the lightsaber pointed fixedly at her adversary. “Enough,” she snaps exasperatedly. “You will come with me to reunite with your family, or I will slice you in half and feed you to the First Order myself. The choice is yours.”

He sneers at her witheringly. “You talk big for a virtuous Jedi.”

Before she can voice an indignant retort, a continuous stream of noisy beeps suddenly spills out from the cockpit and pierces through their tense stand-off.

Rey glances towards the noise irritatedly, but otherwise does not move. “What now?” she grumbles impatiently. She jerks her chin in the direction of the cockpit, wordlessly commanding him to climb back onto his feet.

He begrudgingly obliges, acquiescently placing his hands over the back of his head.

She ushers him into the cockpit with the lightsaber at his back, the both of them curiously peering over at the flashing alert on the controls panel.

They simultaneously hiss out their own profanity of choice.

“Low fuel?” Ben sputters with a heated mixture of bewilderment and annoyance. “How can that be? There was over a quarter left when I took off.”

“The Twi’leks,” Rey realises breathlessly. “They must’ve pierced a leak into our tank after they knocked me out - to drain our fuel so that we couldn’t escape, or, if we did, so that we wouldn’t be running for long.”

Ben heaves an aggravated sigh. “Those Twi’leks are always so thorough.” He arches an eyebrow at her over his shoulder, regarding her with newfound intrigue.

“What?” she demands testily, raising the lightsaber to his face.

“I want to call a truce,” he proposes, slowly twisting around to face her.

“Like I could possibly muster up enough trust in you for that,” she scoffs cynically. “Luke warned me you’re crafty. I guess I didn’t heed his caution well enough.”

“I promise I won’t shoot you again,” he vows, holding his hands up yieldingly in the air. “I won’t need to, anyway. I just need you to allow me one thing, and then I’ll willingly follow you back to the Resistance base. You have my word on that.”

“What thing?” she queries skeptically.

He gulps. “I need to make a stop in Naboo. Just one quick stop. It’s close enough from here for us to make it on what’s left - even with the leak.”

“Naboo?” she echoes. “The Gungan planet?”

“It has a human population, too,” he chastises, strangely annoyed by her harmless ignorance. “But it’s the only thing I need to do before you take me to the Resistance. Allow me this one favour, and I will be cooperative for the rest of the trip.”

“Why do you need to go there?” she questions suspiciously, not quite buying the idea of his truce. From what she’s been told, Ben Solo has been running, hiding, and fighting for a life of independence and freedom - far away from the war, the First Order, and most of all, the Resistance - for a long time. She posits that perhaps, in light of the present circumstances, he is sensible enough to recognise that the Resistance is currently the lesser of two evils.

“I need to find something that I hid there a long time ago,” he replies cryptically. “That’s all I’ll say on the matter.”

She frowns at him, conflicted and surly.

“If we stop off at Naboo, that will give you some time to fix the homing beacon,” he reasons.

“The homing beacon is functional. It just has a poorer signal near the Outer Rim-“

“No, it’s broken. I smashed it after I loaded you back onto the ship.”

Her nostrils flare with fury. “Why, you-!”

“I’m assuming a Jakku scavenger such as yourself would have the faculty for salvaging broken things,” he murmurs offhandedly.

“I resent the presumption,” she tells him bitterly.

“But is it incorrect?” he points out.

She scowls at him silently.

“Will you take it or not?” he asks her, moving past the subject. “The truce. Do we have a deal?” He holds out an outstretched hand, pinning her with a weighty gaze.

The voice of reason inside her head screams at her to decline, reminding her that he is a notorious liar, that he has literally _shot_ her today, and that he could cut and run at any moment if she were to give him this chance. But something else, some incomprehensible force, is pulling her arm up as if she were a puppet attached to manipulatable string. On pure instinct, she lowers the lightsaber in one hand and reaches out with the other, impetuously accepting his handshake.

Her heart inexplicably jolts in her chest when their hands finally meet.

“If I end up regretting this decision,” she threatens ominously, “so will you.”


	3. It’s a scene and we’re out here in plain sight

“Lando was right,” Rey mentions, rummaging through one of the compartments of her ship. “You’re a hot commodity today.”

Ben leans against the wall adjacent to her, absentmindedly twirling a blaster pistol in one hand.

She straightens from her hunch with a large bundle of fabric in her arms, and then tosses a black cloak to him. “We can’t let people recognise you.”

He holds out the article of clothing in one hand, examining it indifferently. “What about you?”

She frowns at him, throwing her own, dark brown cloak over her shoulders. “What about me?”

“Will people recognise you?” he specifies. “Especially with that distinctive...hairstyle?”

She bristles at the hint of mockery in his tone. Despite herself, his comment makes her self-conscious. “I don’t have many enemies.”

“You don’t need to. As long as people know who you are and what to look for.”

She hesitates, but concedes to his suggestion. Reluctantly, she reaches her arms over her head and disassembles the three buns in her hair - her trademark hairstyle since she was only a child.

He watches her do it, his eyes boring into her like rays of blinding sunlight. “And for the first time in her life, she finally feels pretty,” he teases.

“Shut up,” she grunts abashedly, turning away as her cheeks flare up with heat. She feels grudgingly girly as she stalks away, fluffing out her hair with her hands.

They make landing at Theed, Naboo’s capital city, only a few moments later. The dread simmering in the pit of Rey’s stomach only intensifies as she carefully lowers their ship onto the spaceport. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she murmurs to herself, before switching off the ship and joining Ben at the exit.

They pause for a moment to brace themselves before disembarking, Ben dutifully pulling the hood of his cloak over his head and Rey merely inhaling an anticipatory breath.

“Remember,” she cautions, “we do this as quickly and inconspicuously as possible. Go in, do our business, get out. I assume that retrieving your mysterious _possession_ won’t take too long.”

He says nothing in response, merely peering down at the top of her head and casually reaching up a hand to smooth down her hair.

Vexedly, she slaps it away, scowling up at him in warning.

“You had a little...loopy...thing. Just fixing it for you,” he explains, his lips curving with amusement.

Now thoroughly irritated, she roughly pushes past him, steadfastly stepping out from the familiar shelter of her ship.

* * *

Approaching the nearest mechanic and requesting a fuel tank repair goes relatively smoothly. The mechanic is too preoccupied tinkering under the hood of a speeder to properly scrutinise his two new customers, so Rey and Ben are able to transact and then slip away unrecognised.

“Alright,” Rey sighs, resting her hands on her hips as they exit the repair shop. “In the meantime, let’s go retrieve your...whatever-it-is you’re looking for.”

He sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, flashing her a tentative grin. “Yeah...about that.”

Her eyes widen incredulously at him. “What?” she snaps waspishly.

“So, that’s gonna take a little longer than you‘re expecting,” he reveals.

“ _How_ much longer?” she demands, her voice rumbling with a cranky growl.

“The place I need to go to is in Lake Country.”

“Lake Country? Where’s that?” she splutters.

“About two hours from here by speeder.”

“ _Two hours_?” she explodes, advancing on him with tensed, angry shoulders. “By speeder? We don’t have a speeder!”

“Yeah, we’ll have to rent one, won’t we?” he ponders absently, squinting around.

“I do not have enough credits at my disposal to waste on this nonsense!” Rey huffs irately.

He smirks. “Being a Jedi doesn’t pay well? Who knew?”

She glowers at him unhappily. “We are not going to Lake Country. It’s too risky to travel two hours away from our ship by only speeder. You can forget about it right now.”

“Then _you_ can expect for me to make your life very, very difficult in return,” he implies threateningly, looming over her with his staggering height. “That was the deal.”

“You did not relay to me all aspects of the deal,” she accuses. “You were dishonest and you misled me. What a tremendous surprise.”

“I never said that what I needed to retrieve was in Theed,” he argues. “You assumed that yourself.”

“I would think that you would have corrected me!”

A grin breaks out across his face. “Alright. You got me there,” he admits.

Her nose scrunches up with immense displeasure at the deceitful, yet cunning man before her. “You’re a scoundrel.”

He smiles crookedly back at her, seemingly proud of the designation.

“Just like your father,” she adds contentiously.

Her remark wipes the smile clean off his face. He leans forward and stares down at her with bitter, smouldering eyes. “I am _nothing_ like Han Solo,” he declares with conviction.

She merely scoffs at his overdramatic proclamation, folding her arms crossly over her chest and glaring off.

“Well, what’ll it be?” he prompts her, lifting his chin haughtily. “Do you want me to make a scene, right here, in the centre of Naboo? Because believe me, I’ll do it.”

She does believe him. Yet another caution that Luke had imparted on her was that his nephew was boundlessly fearless, to an extent that bordered on lunacy. She supposes, then, that she has no choice. _I knew I would regret this decision_ , she acknowledges to herself. “Scoundrel,” she spits at him again, before violently shoving past him and heading to the nearest speeder rental.

* * *

All the forewarning in the world could not have prepared Rey for the hurricane that is Ben Solo.

During their speeder ride out of the city and into the depths of the countryside, she deliberates over a hundred different ways she could knock him out, restrain him, drag him back to their ship, and deliver him to the Resistance base, where she will never need to concern herself with him again. But the stakes are too high, and Ben Solo is too volatile, and something as simple as collecting him in a box from Lando Calrissian and taking him straight to the Resistance was somehow rendered impossible by him. Challenging him reminds her of tinkering around with the faulty wires of a ship - one oversight, and it’s all over. It is then that she realises that this is the image Ben Solo has purposely cultivated for himself, knowing fully well that he is able to wield it to his advantage.

Her resentment for him cannot be overstated.

He whistles a jovial tune as he drives their speeder down the countryside road, his dark, scruffy hair blowing freely in the wind.

She moodily fiddles with the broken homing beacon in her hands, tremendously annoyed by his blithe, carefree attitude.

“I told you we’d have time for you to fix that,” he shouts over the wind.

She bridles at his words - the way it sounds like he has done her a favour by not lying to her about this one, trivial detail, as if she should be thanking him for it. “Why am I allowing this?” she wonders aloud to herself.

“I do keep my word,” he tells her in response.

She just shakes her head doubtfully.

“I do,” he insists. “I may not tell you the whole story, but I do mean what I say. After all this is done, I _will_ come back with you to the Resistance base.”

“Good,” she mutters sulkily. “Then hopefully I’ll never have to deal with you again.”

He laughs. “You wound me.”

The next couple of hours are spent in silence, after Ben gives up on making one-sided conversation with his new travel companion. Even when he occasionally turns to look at her thoughtfully, all she does is ignore him, obstinately twisting around in her seat to face the other way.

Though Rey does make headway in salvaging the remains of the beacon, the gentle breeze eventually lulls her to sleep.

Ben takes the opportunity to openly survey the girl beside him, appreciating the rare expression of serenity on her usually irritable features.

She is quite pretty, he realises.

* * *

It is an hour later when she stirs, stretching and yawning noisily after her much-needed slumber. She rubs her eyes groggily, blinking dazedly past the brightness of natural sunlight.

Her jaw drops when her eyes adjust to the scenery.

The landscape is utterly breathtaking, characterised by lush, green, rolling hills, lavish mountains of dense trees, and most of all, a vast, central expanse of lake, so still that it underscores the scenery with a flawless one-to-one reflection. In the far distance, the silhouette of a palatial lake house elegantly protrudes from the picturesque backdrop.

“Varykino,” Ben says, startling her from her reverie.

She closes her mouth, embarrassed that she was openly gawking, having forgotten that she wasn’t alone.

“My grandparents were married here,” he divulges to her.

She eyes him warily. “Which grandparents?”

He pulls his lips into a stern line. “ _Those_ ones.” When she doesn’t verbalise a response, he casts her a sidelong glance. “He was human once, too, you know.”

She doesn’t express anything further, instead gazing out at the monumental structure on the horizon, wondering what in the galaxy Ben Solo could be searching for inside.


	4. In the dead of night, your eyes so green

Rey is stunned into speechlessness by the striking beauty of Varykino’s spectacular architecture.

She follows Ben into the building with wide eyes and an unhinged jaw, spinning around in circles with her head tilted back as she drinks in the magnificent splendour of the estate, coupled with the resplendence of the natural landscape in the background. Though she has never cared to concern herself with such things, she can’t help but notice how incredibly romantic this place is. _Perfect for a wedding_ , she finds herself observing.

Ben, on the other hand, marches resolutely ahead, clearly having already taken this view for granted a long time ago. He leads her into a large, capacious hall - one that sweeps out into a grand balcony punctuated by lofty columns and ornately-patterned balusters. “Stay here,” he orders brusquely, before striding off through a small, nearby door.

She would have bristled at his commanding tone, if it weren’t for the captivating landscape luring her out onto the balcony. Her hands find the surface of the balustrade and she leans against it, drawing in a shaky breath of amazement. “I didn’t know there was this much green in the whole galaxy,” she whispers.

It must be at least a half hour that Rey just stands out there, silently absorbing the scenery, but time is something that she’d lost track of as soon as she stepped out onto that balcony.

“Not bad, hey?”

She jumps at the sound of his voice, alarmed to find him suddenly leaning over the balustrade beside her.

He’s cradling a mysterious box in his hands, smiling at her with something akin to affection.

She recovers from her sudden fright, sliding her gaze back out at the scenery. “Y-Yeah,” she replies in a stammer. “Hard to imagine Darth Vader in a place like this.”

“Yes,” he agrees pensively, “but Anakin Skywalker - that’s easier to fathom.”

She angles her head to meet his stare, so meditative and enigmatic. “So,” she says, straightening and breaking the strange tension suddenly palpable between them, “got what you came for?”

He glances down at the box in his hands. “Right where I left it,” he answers, seemingly pleased.

“Then I suppose it’s time to get out of here,” she proposes, albeit reluctantly. She pushes herself off the balustrade, sauntering back into the hall.

“Unless,” he intervenes, stopping her in her tracks, “we stay here for the night.”

She spins back around to face him, frowning at him skeptically. “And why would we do that?”

“It’s getting dark, if you haven’t noticed,” he mentions, gesturing out towards the sunset. “A bit perilous to travel by speeder at night, especially given the current circumstances, wouldn’t you say?”

Her lips curve downwards into a sullen pout. “And who would give us permission to bunk here tonight?”

“Me,” he answers with a shrug. “I own Varykino.”

“You own this entire place?” she exclaims disbelievingly, her eyebrows raised in astonishment.

“It was my grandmother’s. Passed down to me,” he says nonchalantly. “Nobody outside of my family knows about it.”

“Why wouldn’t you stay here all the time?” she splutters in bewilderment.

He supplies her with an inscrutable smirk, as if there is so much more to this than he is letting on. “Believe it or not, you get sick of it,” he returns enigmatically.

“I could never get sick of this,” she declares bluntly, running her eyes across the scenery. “Not after growing up in Jakku.”

“Good. Then you’ll have no problem spending just one night here,” he coaxes, motioning towards the view indicatively.

She eyes him warily. “And who’s to say that you won’t run off with the speeder while I sleep and abandon me here?” she demands.

He snorts lightheartedly. “We can sleep together, if that’ll make you feel better.”

A mortified, flustered heat rises to her cheeks as she stutters, “I was _not_  suggesting-”

“Though, that wouldn’t be very proper for a lady Jedi, now, would it?” he taunts.

She heaves a long, exasperated sigh at him. “Then I won’t sleep,” she huffs stubbornly.

He frowns at her disapprovingly, and for a moment, appears to be ready to admonish her, but ultimately just scoffs, shaking his head. “Fine. Suit yourself. Sit up and _watch_ me sleep all night, like a stalker.”

She glares at him as he treads leisurely past her, carelessly tossing the box between his hands.

Maybe, she contemplates, she should prefer the prospect of getting attacked on the road by veermoks over having to spend an entire night with Ben Solo.

* * *

Varykino is much eerier at night.

The massive, hollow volume of each vacant, high-ceilinged room is intimidating under dim lighting. Long, spidery shadows stem lithely from the flowery patterns of the interior decor, creeping sinisterly across the tall, empty walls.

Rey shivers as she curls up on a red, dusty sofa in one of the parlour rooms, mending the homing beacon in her hands with a small kit of tools.

Ben ambles into the room and openly appraises her, holding a piece of fruit in one hand and carrying a hefty tome in the other. He sets the fruit between his teeth and then shrugs off his jacket, chivalrously draping it over her shoulders.

She briefly glances up at him and utters a begrudging, “Thanks,” all the while inwardly cursing herself for allowing him to somehow wheedle her into this situation. Was this really the best course of action that she could have taken? Did she make a huge mistake, enabling this sequence of events out of nothing but a blind reliance on empty promises?

He slumps down into the sofa across the room and flips open the tome, lackadaisically munching on his fruit as he idly peruses its pages.

After a long while, she feels his eyes lingering peskily on her, and she tuts in annoyance, snapping her head up to confront him. “Do you mind?“

“Who are your parents?” he promptly inquires, ignoring her tetchy request.

She eyes him grumpily. “Why?”

“I’m curious,” he replies simply, taking another noisy chomp of his fruit. “Was your mother or your father a Force user? Or was it both? Or neither?”

She clenches her jaw and resumes her work on the beacon. “That’s none of your business.”

“Why not?” he presses, intrigued. “You were happy to tell me you come from Jakku. Why not this? What are you hiding?”

“Maybe you should respect other people’s privacy,” she retorts testily. “Like how I’ve come to respect yours. I haven’t asked you a single thing about _your_ bizarre life: why you abandoned your family all those years ago, what you did to make the First Order suddenly want your head, or even what’s in that mysterious box that you’ve forced me to come all the way out here with you for.”

He chuckles at her. “Wow. And here I was, thinking that you didn’t ask because Luke had already explained everything to you. Turns out you actually just didn’t care.”

“Master Skywalker told me enough,” she states.

“Really?” he pipes up curiously. “And what did he tell you?”

“He told me you’ve always been resentful of your family,” she answers mechanically. “That you’ve always tried to defy their expectations of you. You resent that you carry the weight of the Skywalker bloodline on your shoulders, and you make tremendous efforts to distance yourself from your family as much as possible. That’s why you tried to change your name to Kylo Ren.”

“Impressive,” Ben responds patronisingly. “Every word of what you just said was wrong.”

She rolls her eyes carelessly. “Whatever. From what I’ve seen, your character fits the description quite well.”

“It’s exactly the kind of typical drivel I would expect from Luke,” he mutters bitterly. “He’s always been so spiteful towards me.”

“That is not true,” she denies vehemently. “Your uncle loves you. Your entire family does. You hurt them by abandoning them.”

He laughs humourlessly. “I abandoned them? Of course. Of course that’s what they’ve been telling everyone.” He tosses the fruit core thoughtlessly over his shoulder; it is an act of petulant rebellion.

She glances over at him - at his unhappy scowl, and the childish, almost endearing way that he pouts as he silently broods. _He looks so lonely_ , she can’t help but realise. “My parents were nobody,” she blurts, inexplicably overwhelmed by a sense of compassion for him. “Just a couple of junk traders who left me when I was young. I know what it’s like to be alone.”

He looks up at her, his gaze gleaming with sympathy.

She shrugs and drops her eyes back down onto the beacon.

“And yet,” he speaks, “you are so loyal to Luke, and the Jedi, and the Resistance. Why is that?” He narrows his eyes at her speculatively. “You have no place in this story. You come from nothing. You’re nothing.”

She winces at his calloys choice of words. “Thanks,” she bleats sarcastically.

“I mean,” he amends, “you don’t have to be a part of this war. You could go out and live your own life, free from this needless conflict. You could do whatever you want.”

“This _is_ what I want,” she says earnestly. “To be a Jedi. To be a Resistance hero. To fight for what’s right.” She presses her lips into a thin, surly line. “Even if it means having to deal with scoundrels like you.”

He puffs out a mirthful laugh, that same, mischievous sparkle back in his eyes. “Come on. I’ve been alright since we got here, haven’t I? I’ve kept my word. No running off, no lying, no need to tackle me to the ground and threaten me with a lightsaber.”

“ _You_ tackled _me_!” she corrects him with shrill incredulity, failing to fight the amused smile unfurling across her lips.

He returns her grin. Her smile, such a rarity to him by this point, is unexpectedly charming. He finds himself subconsciously admiring the cute, little dimples punctuating the corners of her mouth, and the roundness of her cheeks when they are outstretched with joy.

“Pretty foolish of you, by the way,” Rey mutters offhandedly.

“What?”

“To think that merely binding a Jedi with rope would be enough to restrain her.”

Ben flashes a devilish smile. “I really thought you were too untrained to escape.”

“Oi!” she barks, her jaw dropping in both humour and outrage.

The air between them is noticeably lighter, Rey’s shoulders slowly relaxing from their previously irritable hunch.

Ben cocks his head to the side, peering at the girl in front of him inquisitively. “What kind of Imperial ships did you find on Jakku?” he asks conversationally, appreciating the way her demeanour immediately brightens at the shift in topic.

He watches her delve into a long, impassioned monologue on the ship mechanics of Imperial Star Destroyers, too enchanted by her natural charm to really hear what she is saying.

* * *

Rey doesn’t remember falling asleep.

But when she awakens the next morning to find herself alone in an extremely empty room, the panic inevitably sets in.

He tricked her.

With a startled gasp, she clambers off of the sofa and dashes out of the room. Her heartbeat pounds in her ears as she sprints down the long, empty halls, hot tears of dread and betrayal stinging at her eyes. She rounds the last corner to the front entrance of the house and lashes an arm out at the air. The double doors fly open with great vigour, as if blown open by explosive force.

She whooshes through the doors, tears down the steps outside, swoops out onto the driveway...

...and skids to a halt.

The speeder. It’s still there.

Rey blinks at it in bewilderment, her mind struggling to process the turn of events - or, rather, the lack thereof.

_He didn’t run away?_

“What are you doing?”

She squeaks in fright and swivels around to find him at the top of the stairs. “I-I...” she stammers, mortified at the likely chance that he had witnessed her complete overreaction. “Nothing.” She hurries embarrassedly back up the steps, ducking her tear-stained face from his sight, and makes to push past him.

But he steps out, purposely obstructing her. “You thought I left, didn’t you?” he teases giddily.

“No,” she lies curtly, making another attempt at sidestepping him.

He traps her again. “You were genuinely upset!” he exclaims with glee. “You were running so fast-”

“Shut up!” she hisses sulkily. She forcefully shoves him aside and storms back into the house.

She _was_ upset. She’s still upset, right now, and she doesn’t know why. In fact, she realises that she is even more distraught now than she was before.

“I wouldn’t do that, you know,” he calls after her retreating form.

 _Maybe things were easier back when I thought you would_ , she thinks to herself.


	5. Lights flash and we’ll run for the fences

Rey is quiet again on the speeder ride back to town.

To Ben, this is just another instance of anger and annoyance at him on her behalf - nothing particularly new.

But Rey is a cistern of hot, conflicting emotions, all brewing treacherously inside of her and too complex for her to even begin to process. All she really knows for certain is that the man sitting beside her is starting to drive her mad, and that this cute, little adventure with him needs to come to an end.

Soon.

“Come on. I’m a little hurt you’d think I would run off like that, after that nice talk we had last night,” he mentions lightheartedly.

She continues to peer out at the rolling landscape, silent.

“It was nice, wasn’t it?” he prompts.

She reluctantly meets his eyes, recognising a trace of vulnerability and trepidation in them.

“You didn’t think so?” he coaxes gently.

She misses the way his expression faintly falls when all she does is turn away.

* * *

“Put your hood back on.”

They are fast approaching the gates back into Theed, and the cluster of speeders swarming the perimeter is making Rey nervous.

“As you wish,” Ben mutters, compliantly tugging his hood back over his head.

“Can’t...see well in this thing.”

“Try,” she retorts tersely.

For entrance back into the metropolis, all speeders must pass through the perimeter gates. A simple licence plate check is all that is required, according to Ben, for re-entry into the city.

“Worst case scenario, you have to pay a toll fee. But that’s it,” he assures her confidently.

But she still urges him to pull his hood lower over his face when they reach the fateful gates, paranoid that a shrewd bystander might recognise him.

“Looks like there’s a fee. Damn,” he tuts, peering over at the tollbooth. “You got any money?”

She sighs in aggravation and begrudgingly fishes through her rucksack for coins. “Here,” she says coldly, snappily shoving a few into his palm. “Hurry up. You’re being so slow. What are you doing?”

Ben, as a matter of fact, is squinting curiously at the text inscribed onto the tollbooth, hovering a coin over the coin slot but refusing to drop it. “These crooks. They raised it. They raised the fee.” He pulls the hood back from his eyes to read it more closely.

“Who cares? Just pay it and let’s get out of here!” she growls.

“But honestly, who would set a toll this high?” he grouses. “It’s just criminal.”

“ _Pay_ the kriffing toll _right now_ or _so help me_ -!”

“Alright, alright,” he concedes, before swiftly depositing the required number of coins into the slot.

So suddenly that neither of them even get the chance to register it until it’s over, a camera spontaneously pops out from inside the tollbooth and promptly snaps a picture of Ben’s face. They both freeze in consternation, utterly dumbstruck by the unprecedented development.

Rey does not get the chance to hurl incensed profanities at Ben before the inevitable sirens blare overhead.

“ _Fugitive detected. Fugitive detected_ ,” the alarm system bellows deafeningly. “ _Please remain where you are_.”

“Go,” Rey blurts.

“What?”

“ _Go_!” she howls, startling his foot back onto the accelerator.

Their speeder lurches forward with a powerful thrust, forcefully bursting through the unopened gate and flinging shards of broken wood into the air.

The discordant screech of the sirens gradually subsides as they zoom further away from the perimeter, but the trouble is far from behind them; in fact, it lies directly ahead, where a population of ten million have all been alerted to the impending arrival of Ben Solo, today’s grandest prize in the galaxy.

If only their ship weren’t in the same place.

“You idiot!” Rey explodes at him, positively brimming with unadulterated rage. “How could you not remember that they performed facial identification?”

“They didn’t have it last time I was here, I swear!” he cries defensively, shouting back over the wind.

“And when was that?”

“Like...” he hesitates. “Like three years ago, at most!”

“I am going to kill you!” she shrieks at him wrathfully, her fists balled with barely contained fury. “If the millions of Theedians up there don’t do it first, I will!”

“There’s no need to start panicking right away,” he insists calmly. “There’s a chance that they won’t even realise who we are until after we’ve ditched the speeder and taken off in our ship.”

As if on cue, two fighters come swooping down on them from the sky, blasting them with red searchlights.

Rey slides a very unimpressed look over at Ben.

“Alright, well,” Ben says admittedly, “now it might get a little messy.”

“Words cannot express how much I- _Ah_!” She is cut off by her own shriek of alarm when they are suddenly raked with a cascade of lasers.

They can only crouch defensively in reaction, Rey ducking her head between her knees and Ben sliding so far down in his seat that he can barely see over the top of the steering wheel.

“I don’t think that’s the law enforcement!” Ben yells over the barrage.

“You don’t say!” Rey yells back sarcastically. “It’s been two minutes and we’re already being raided by bounty hunters!”

“We’re almost at city centre. At least we’ll have cover,” Ben points out, flooring the pedal beneath his foot.

Rey winces as the speeder spurts forward with a thunderous roar of its engine, swerving precariously from the added velocity.

The two fighters are persistent in their onslaught of laserfire, knocking the speeder into a new, erratic trajectory with every hit.

“Hold on!” Ben warns Rey with a quivery shout. “We’re about to hit the city!”

Tall, neighbouring buildings force the fighters to pull up from their prey. The speeder whizzes down short, narrow streets, protectively shadowed by lofty spacescrapers.

Ben audibly groans with the effort of deftly manoeuvring past the busying traffic, nimbly slithering through fellow landspeeders, speeder bikes, and very dismayed pedestrians.

“Ben!” Rey squeals in fright as they barely miss a disastrous collision with a speeder bus. She can do nothing but squeeze her eyes shut in suspense when their speeder reels violently from Ben’s sharp turn.

“I’m normally a very good driver, by the way!” he informs her matter-of-factly.

“And what makes you think I care?” she quips scornfully.

“I just wanted you to know!”

She would have rolled her eyes, if it weren’t for the swoop bikes that suddenly zip out from a passing alleyway and rapidly close in on either side of them.

Three cloaked, masked figures form a triangle around their speeder - one on the left, one on the right, and one directly behind. With cold, calculating precision, they simultaneously raise their respective blasters and fire at their targets.

Ben and Rey duck their heads defencelessly against the blasterfire, both crying out in distress.

“These idiots!” Ben splutters. “Don’t they know the bounty is void if I’m dead?” He fumbles for the blaster pistol on his right hip and aimlessly fires it over their heads, too haphazardly random in direction to actually hit anything.

“Alright. That’s enough,” Rey hisses determinedly, feeling for her lightsaber. With a deep, preparatory inhale, she ignites her weapon and flings it in a wide arc around their speeder. It mercilessly carves through the right speeder bike, then the left speeder bike, and then finally the back speeder bike, before swinging around in a full circle and boomeranging back into Rey’s outstretched hand. All three bikes fatefully topple and crash around them in a series of outrageously fiery explosions.

“Nice!” Ben cheers with an exuberant grin at Rey.

She glances at the flaming wreckage over her shoulder and then beams back at him, triumphant.

But their moment of victory is short-lived. Theedian law enforcement spots them from around a corner and charges after them in pursuit.

Ben cusses and wheels their speeder into a sharp right turn, barely skimming past a sidewalk full of frightened pedestrians. “I sure hate morning traffic!” he remarks as he squeezes in between two speeder trucks.

Rey spots an overpass up ahead, toying with the idea of knocking it down to impede the pursuers behind them. But the concrete structure is large and sturdy, and she doubts her own ability to bring the whole thing down.

She’ll have to try.

“Keep going!” she shouts over to Ben. “Straight ahead!”

He unquestioningly fulfils her request, snarling with effort as he propels their speeder onwards.

Rey carefully rises to her feet, steadying herself with one hand and raising the other above her head. She inhales deeply, closing her eyes, and feels around for a firm grip on the Force.

But before she can even find it, the police speeder behind them explodes, somersaulting through the air and crashing violently into a nearby building.

Ben turns to regard her with consternation. “How did you do that?” he gasps.

“That wasn’t me, you idiot!” she exclaims shrilly.

The two fighters from earlier swiftly descend upon them through an opening in the buildings, relentlessly blasting their speeder with laser cannons.

Ben swears in exasperation when their speeder veers uncontrollably from the impact, helplessly squinting through the thick plumes of smoke wafting up from the engine. With horror, he discovers that the speeder is no longer responsive to his hand; it’s time to jump ship. “I can’t control this thing anymore!” he shouts at Rey. “Jump!”

She widens her eyes at him but promptly complies, kicking out the passenger side door and rolling out onto the street. Ben follows suit, swinging his rucksack over his arm and cradling it protectively as he tumbles out of the speeder.

The speeder hurtles unfalteringly forwards before smashing straight into a building in a brilliant inferno. Nearby pedestrians all flee in terror from the raging aftermath.

Rey and Ben watch this unfurl from their coiled positions on the ground, groaning painfully against the coarse asphalt.

“I guess we’re not getting our deposit back,” Ben mentions through agonised coughs.

The fighters overhead ruthlessly swoop back down on the two defenceless fugitives, showering them with more laserfire.

With a frightened gasp, Ben scrambles up onto his feet and sprints for Rey, throwing himself over her and defensively shielding her in his arms.

Miraculously, they make it through the blitz unscathed, as the fighters soar past them and pull up for another round.

Ben unwraps himself from Rey’s body and snaps his head up to the sky, fretfully following the fighters with his eyes. “Come on,” he urges, grasping her by the hand and wrenching them both onto their feet.

Rey can only follow him dumbly, still thunderstruck about what had just happened.


	6. They are the hunters, we are the foxes

“I think we lost them,” Ben speculates through measured pants of exhaustion.

The two have been racing nonstop through the bustling city for quite a while now, recklessly leaping across traffic and unceremoniously shoving their way through half-curious, half-appalled crowds. Somewhere along the way, the persistent roar of the two fighter engines have ceased, lulling them into a sense of temporary security.

“Which way is the spaceport?” Rey asks.

“This way,” Ben responds, before taking a sharp turn around the block.

They yank their hoods low over their heads as they attempt to slink into the inconspicuous shelter of the crowd, marching onwards with quick, agitated steps. Ben curls a hand around Rey’s arm and assertively leads her through the busy mass. Faraway sirens echo forebodingly in the distance, a reminder of the persisting search by Theedian law enforcement.

Upon finally reaching the spaceport, they breathe a conjoined sigh of relief. On the far end of the port is their loyal ship - washed, ready, and waiting for them. They make a beeline for it, too restless to sustain their guise.

But they barely make it a few strides before Ben is suddenly ensnared by a net. He stumbles into a helpless heap on the ground.

Rey skids to a stop and whirls around to find a masked assailant brandishing a bulky net gun. She bares her teeth aggressively and whisks out her lightsaber, just as they fire another net at her. It is obliterated by a single swipe of her weapon, and with one outstretched arm, she flings its twisted remains back at her opponent. It swirls around them in a tangled web and sends them flying backwards into an incarcerated mess.

She wastes no time in spinning around and going back for Ben, who is thrashing about powerlessly on the ground as another masked figure drags him away by the leg. “Oh, no, you don’t!” she yells, raising an angry hand.

The figure is propelled backwards by Rey’s blast of the Force. They relinquish their hold on Ben and tumble limply to the ground.

She sprints fiercely back to him and slices the net open with her lightsaber, freeing him.

“That was _not_ cool!” Ben growls lividly, heaving himself back up onto his feet. His expression is burning with rage and humiliation.

“Let’s go,” she ushers, pushing him forward by the arm.

But he is once again snatched away, right from under her fingertips, and she does not even register what has happened until he is already dangling several feet above ground by a cord.

“Ben!” she screeches in horror, fruitlessly scurrying after him as he is lifted further and further up in the air.

The airspeeder that ensnared him hovers patiently above their heads, slowly hoisting him up by a long cord hooked onto his cloak.

Ben foolhardily fishes for the blaster on his belt and then aims it at the cord, hurling angry profanities at his captors before firing it at will.

“Ben, no!” Rey yelps, watching him plummet a hundred feet towards the ground. She makes a dive for his projected landing spot and holds her arms over her head, pushing outwards with all of her might.

Her efforts successfully cushion his fall. He levitates only a few inches above her hands. With an aggravated huff, she flings him the rest of the way onto the ground.

He rolls a few feet and then lands on his back, shooting her a self-satisfied smirk. “I knew you’d catch me.”

She ignores his provocative taunt, snatches the machine blaster from his shoulder, and trains it at the airspeeder floating overhead. With startling accuracy, she fires mercilessly at its engine, which sends it twirling through the air and into a bitter crash-landing.

Ben blinks at her in amazement. “Damn,” he whispers.

More aggressors start to pour in by speeder, encircling them and cutting off their path to the ship.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Rey groans breathlessly, utterly fatigued.

Five different bounty hunters all hop out from their respective vehicles and advance on them from all directions.

Rey and Ben confront their challengers back-to-back, anxiously glancing from one hunter to the next.

“Stay close to me,” Rey murmurs cautiously over her shoulder. “And don’t make any sudden-”

She is interrupted by the sound of four blaster shots being fired consecutively at lightning speed. Within the span of a single second, Ben takes out four of the five hunters.

Reacting quickly, Rey gracefully dodges the remaining hunter’s blasterfire with an expert pirouette, before lunging and striking them down with her lightsaber. Her eyes fall on Ben when she twists back around, her chest swirling with admiration at the sight of him standing triumphantly over his foes with a pistol in each hand.

He smiles softly at her, and she is just about to smile back, when the sound of a blaster firing resonates across the spaceport and a searing pain pierces into her thigh.

“Rey!” she hears him scream as she crumples delicately to the ground.

Ben makes a desperate sprint for her frail, vulnerable form, but is abruptly ambushed by three new hunters on either side.

They seize him forcefully by the arms and lug him away, grappling against his animalistic threshes of resistance. His rucksack slips out from his grasp and plops feebly onto the ground, helplessly discarded on the concrete as he is dragged away.

The sight of a fourth hunter ominously advancing on a weakened Rey is decidedly the last straw for him.

With a raw, explosive bellow of fury, Ben Solo extends both arms.

His captors are sent flying outwards by an invisible boom of energy, whooshing several feet through the air before landing on the hard ground with resolute thuds.

Time slows to a crawl. Rey gapes at the scene before her with wide eyes and an unhinged jaw, utterly floored by the astounding revelation. This phenomenal display of untamed power can only lead to one, unequivocal conclusion.

Ben Solo is Force-sensitive.

He slowly straightens from his crouch with absolute murder in his eyes, lashing out an arm at the air so lithely and effortlessly that it is clear that the action is not foreign to him. His rucksack convulses volcanically in response, before - lo and behold - the hilt of a lightsaber shoots out from under its flap, hurtling directly through the air towards his hand. He catches it with dexterous ease and menacingly ignites it, glaring venomously at the hunter by Rey’s side.

 _Red_ , Rey observes with dismay. _His lightsaber is red._

Not only that, but it is brimming with a jarring, feral energy, continuously emitting turbulent, red zig-zags of sparks and almost growling with low, static buzzes of electricity. It reminds her of the same manic energy that she’d sensed in him upon their first meeting, only this time it is emanating from his blade as well as his eyes. Most notably, the weapon is characterised by two power vents on either side of the main blade - a distinctive cross guard of jagged, red plasma.

Ben’s gaze is wild with aggression through the thick mane of hair curled over his forehead. Gradually, chillingly, he raises the lightsaber in his hand and points it at the last hunter in challenge, the pure, red energy radiating from its blade flickering reflectively off his eyes.

His opponent understandably hesitates, momentarily rooted to the ground in petrified shock, but eventually rises to his bait, responsively flailing a Z6 baton in one hand.

Ben charges at the hunter with a ferocious roar, swinging his weapon at them amongst heavy, lumbering strides. He attacks like a wild, unstoppable beast, his movements heaving with enormous strength and hulking weight. Though he skilfully thwacks down the hunter’s feeble attempts at offence, his strikes dominate solely through sheer power, rather than finesse. Only a few practised clobbers of his lightsaber and the hunter is completely overpowered, thwarted by a final, ruthless pound of his blade.

Rey watches this play out with unadulterated shock, her wounded thigh all but forgotten in light of the startling revelation. She levels a disconcerted stare at the back of Ben’s head, intimidated by the size and strength of his stature as he towers forbiddingly over his fallen opponent.

He sheathes his lightsaber with a definitive hiss, before hastily pivoting on his heel and dashing frantically back over to her. “Rey,” he breathes, “are you okay?”

She frowns at him, almost baffled to speechlessness. “Yeah,” she practically mouths.

He blinks at her with severity, hurriedly snaking one arm around her waist and the other under her thighs. “Come on. We need to go.”

She is too stunned to object as he carries her through the remaining distance to their ship, her eyes fixed on his anxious features with uninhibited bewilderment. Past his head, she can see the two unshakeable fighters plunging down at them from the sky, blasting them with a line of laserfire.

They make it back into the ship intact, just before the fighters can clip them off their path. Ben tenderly sets Rey down onto a passenger bench before swiftly darting into the cockpit, expertly flicking the appropriate controls on along the way.

Their ship thrusts itself into the air with a tremulous rumble and breaks through the clouds, leaving behind the pandemonium of swarming Theedian bounty hunters on the ground below. But even as they transcend Theed’s atmosphere, they are not yet in the clear.

The two fighters inexorably follow them out into the void of space, bombarding them with laser cannons.

Ben audibly groans as he deftly veers their ship out of the line of fire, almost swivelling them upside-down in his attempts at evasion. “Where are the hyperspace controls on this thing?” he shouts in aggravation.

“Here,” Rey speaks, suddenly appearing beside him. She winces in pain as she runs her fingers over the navicomputer, programming in a set of memorised coordinates. “Punch it,” she commands steadfastly.

Awed by her tenacity, he willingly obliges and thrusts the hyperspace lever forward.

The blackness of space slowly bleeds into bright, sterling light around them, and within the next blink of an eye, they are gone.


	7. Just grab my hand and don’t ever drop it

“I worked it out.”

Ben directs a pained gaze down at Rey, who he’s just helped stagger over to a nearby bench.

“The homing beacon,” she elaborates, holding it up demonstratively in one hand. “I know where the Resistance are. They’re on Crait.”

“The mineral planet?” Ben murmurs. “The old Rebel hideout.”

“Yes,” she whispers, grimacing in pain as she adjusts herself.

“Does it hurt?” he questions worriedly.

“Not a lot.”

“Where’s your first aid kit?” he prompts, squatting down beside her.

“Not sure,” she says. “Maybe somewhere in those overhead compartments.”

He hastily straightens and marches over to the storage compartments, madly rummaging through the contents in his pursuit for Rey’s medical relief. Profanities fly out from his lips as he fumbles through all the junk, impatiently sweeping them carelessly onto the floor along the way. His body language is tensed and anxious, as if she will bleed out if he doesn’t find what he needs. “Damn it!” he shouts, furiously hurling an empty metal box across the room. It slams against the wall with a loud crash that makes Rey flinch.

“Ben, it’s fine,” she assures him.

He pauses, contemplating something with one hand on his hip, before darting back over to Rey and shrugging off his jacket. “This will have to do,” he mumbles with an irritated tut, binding it tautly around her wounded thigh.

Rey studies him - the faint crease between his eyebrows, the downturned shape of his lips, the pain, guilt, and sadness in his eyes - and really wishes they weren’t there. She wishes that he wasn’t looking at her like that, and that he wasn’t so utterly, excruciatingly concerned about her. She wishes that he wouldn’t hold her thigh so delicately, or run the palm of his hand so gently across her knee. Most of all, she wishes that she didn’t secretly relish in it - all of it - and that none of it exacerbated the bubbling cauldron of feelings that she’s been harbouring for him since Varykino.

“It’s fine,” she repeats, shaking her head. “We’ll be with the Resistance soon.”

He briefly meets her eyes, before solemnly dropping his gaze.

“But you’ll be leaving, won’t you?” she asks.

He says nothing for a while, simply staring down at his own hands morosely. “I told you I’d go back with you to the Resistance.”

“But you never said anything about staying there once we land,” she concludes.

He lifts his eyes to meet hers with melancholy.

“That’s what I’ve learnt about you,” she tells him dryly. “Through all of this. You’re a dishonest man.”

“I never lied to-“

“You lie by omission,” she cuts him off. “You didn’t tell me about Varykino. You didn’t tell me about the lightsaber. And you didn’t tell me about your powers in the Force.”

He flinches at that.

“That was how you escaped, wasn’t it?” she confronts him. “Back on the Twi’leks’ ship. You used the Force. But I couldn’t sense it all this time, because you knew how to shut yourself off from it at will.”

“I couldn’t tell _anyone_ about my gifts in the Force,” he reveals fiercely. “I couldn’t tell you, even if I wanted to.”

“Why not?”

“Because-!” he stops himself short, fighting the urge to divulge.

She turns away from him heatedly, her jaw set with chagrin.

“Because he would’ve found me,” Ben concedes.

“Who?”

“Supreme Leader Snoke,” he reveals, prompting her to face him. “He’s been searching for me all my life.”

“Supreme Leader Snoke?” she echoes bemusedly. “Is that what this bounty’s all about?”

“It’s a long story,” he mutters vaguely. “One that we don’t have the time for right now.”

“Then when?”

He gnaws on his upper lip, waging an internal battle. “The fact that you even know I’m Force-sensitive already means that you know more than anyone outside of my family. It was always meant to be kept a secret.”

“Why?”

When all he does is sigh miserably, she arrives at her own deductions. “He wants to use you for your power,” she realises herself. “For your bloodline.”

Ben’s mouth twists into a sour grimace. “Apparently, he sensed it,” he tells her. “In me. From a young age.“

She reels from the revelation, still struggling to pull all the pieces together. “He means to turn you. To the Dark Side.”

“Not an entirely difficult feat, according to Luke,” Ben grumbles resentfully.

“Your lightsaber...” she mentions.

“I forged it myself,” he says.

“It’s red.”

“So?”

“That’s a...bad colour.”

“It’s a colour. There’s no such thing as a bad colour.”

“It’s a Sith colour.”

“It’s an emittance of a specific wavelength of light,” he deadpans. “And that lightsaber is the only good thing to come out of my years of Jedi training.”

She sees it in his eyes. He doesn’t need to elaborate. Even with the glaring omission of the details of his past, she can garner enough about him through the morose frown on his lips and the vulnerable cadence in his tone. This man is unbelievably sad, bursting at the seams with past demons. In his loneliness, she sees herself. Unthinkingly, she reaches for his hand, clasping it tightly in hers. “Ben,” she whispers tenderly.

His heart leaps in his chest, both at her gentle touch and the soft, lilting way she says his name.

“Don’t go,” she pleads, searching his eyes beseechingly. “Stay.”

And just like that, his resolve crumbles like sand.

He squeezes her fingers, so delicate and small in his. “Rey-“

Their ship shudders out of hyperspace, the inertia violently jerking them off their balance.

Ben reluctantly tears himself from Rey’s hands and sweeps back into the cockpit, scanning the ship’s navigational screens. “We’ve arrived,” he informs her over his shoulder. “Whereabouts is the outpost?”

“On the northern continent,” Rey calls back. “There’s an-“

The deafening blare of the proximity alert drowns out the rest of her instruction.

Ben leans over the ship’s controls to peer out the viewport in alarm, scouring their surroundings with panicked eyes. “Those fighters!” he cries.

“Again?” Rey splutters from the back. “How did they-?”

“They tracked us through light speed,” he surmises with horror. “But that kind of technology... Not any old starship has the capability to implement it.” His shoulders tense with realisation. “They’re with the First Order.”

Underscoring his declaration, the huge, hulking figure of the Supremacy - Supreme Leader Snoke’s main ship - suddenly materialises behind them, casting a fearsome, colossal shadow over their comparably puny vessel.

“Oh no,” Ben mutters numbly.

“Ben?” Rey calls out to him with concern, craning her neck to look for him in the cockpit.

Dark, leaden comprehension slowly dawns upon him, weighing him down into the pilot’s seat. “He found me.”


	8. Love’s a fragile little flame, it could burn out

“We’re going down!”

Ben can’t control this ship anymore. It’s taken too much damage - having been absolutely no match for the First Order artillery - and lost all propulsion. All he can do is pray to the Force and steer it into the safest possible crash landing.

Hopefully a nice, plane salt flat, and not a rocky, jagged cliff side.

When they clear through the dark, stormy clouds, it thankfully appears to be the former.

“Hold on, Rey!” he yells over his shoulder, levelling the ship against the salty surface.

She latches onto the handlebar over her head and clenches her teeth, bracing herself for impact.

Their collision with the surface is a grand spectacle of flying, red soil. The ship skitters hazardously across the ground, leaving a nasty, red streak in the snowy-white salt behind, before finally skidding to a violent halt.

Ben has to collect himself with a few heaving gasps of composure, his hands gripped tightly onto the yoke in front of him as he processes the fact that they didn’t die. He drops his head onto his knuckles for a moment, panting wildly, before snapping his mouth shut and bounding out of the cockpit.

“Are you alright?” he breathes, racing up to Rey.

She is shaken, but unharmed, nodding dazedly back at him. “Yeah.”

Ben sighs, slumping down onto the bench beside her. “I don’t even know how far we landed from the outpost.”

“There’s a good chance the Resistance will find us,” Rey insists. “If their homing beacon hasn’t sensed ours, they will at least detect the First Order ships floating up there above the surface. They’ll know something is wrong.”

“Or they’ll just think the First Order are here to fight them,” Ben counters.

“Don’t give up hope.”

“Hope,” he scoffs cynically. “That’s something I lost the ability to possess a long time ago.”

Her heart squeezes for him. “Ben.”

“Snoke will be coming for us,” he mentions unfeelingly. “He’s probably coming for us right now.”

On cue, the faraway whir of First Order engines echoes faintly in the distance.

Ben shuts his eyes and lowers his head, coming to terms with his unavoidable fate. They sit there together in silent dread, listening as the momentous thud of a shuttle landing outside shakes the floor at their feet.

Ben stands from his seat and treads back into the cockpit, surveying the landscape outside the viewport. He gulps when he spots Supreme Leader Snoke himself, delicately descending from his shuttle, escorted by his personal party of Elite Praetorian Guards. Two accompanying fighters remain where they are on either side of Snoke’s shuttle, floating ominously above ground in vigilant surveillance.

When Ben returns from the cockpit, his gaze is stony with resolve. “Stay here,” he commands Rey, barely breaking stride as he heads for the exit.

“No!” she explodes, her voice so hoarse with desperation and rage that it stops him in his tracks. “You are _not_ going out there!”

He tilts his head slightly, offering her a sidelong glance. “I have to.”

“No, you don’t!” she shouts adamantly. “If you go out there, he will try to turn you!”

“He won’t turn me,” he states confidently. “He can’t. He’ll learn that soon enough.”

“Then he’ll kill you.”

“So be it.”

“Ben.”

He inhales sharply. “Goodbye, Rey.”

“Ben!” she shrieks despairingly. The sight of his retreating back is too much for her to bear. She leaps out of her seat and stumbles through the pain, flinging herself in front of him obstructively.

“Rey!” he cries in dismay, catching her by the arms.

“Don’t go,” she implores, tears streaming freely down her cheeks.

He stares down at her in agony, wondering what he must have done in a previous life to deserve this kind of torment.

“You don’t belong with the First Order,” she tells him emphatically. “You belong with the Resistance. With your family. With me.”

“No,” he denies stubbornly. “I bring chaos everywhere I go. I’m cursed. And you... You’re a Jedi. You’re not supposed to be bogged down by...by...” He hesitates. “You don’t need me.”

She gazes up at him wetly. “Yes, I do,” she declares with blazing sincerity. “I’m not letting you go out th-“

He cuts her off with his lips, the affirmation all he needed to finally give in to his yearning.

She gasps against his mouth, so firm and so earnest, her body limp in his embrace as he winds his arms tightly around her waist. Her eyes flutter shut as she surrenders to the kiss, returning it with fervour and raking her fingers through his hair.

These are the feelings she’s been fighting since Varykino. Deep, dark, forbidden desires, utterly taboo to the likes of a Jedi. But they have fully manifested now, no longer deniable, and all she can do is cling onto them desperately while she still can.

Somehow, in the span of only a couple of days, this man has come to mean the galaxy to her.

Much too soon, he pulls away, releasing her from his grasp.

She blinks once, then twice, frozen in place from the heady stupor of his kiss, and then he is gone.

* * *

Ben Solo has managed to survive twenty-nine years of his life without coming face-to-face with Supreme Leader Snoke.

Today, it seems, that streak must be broken.

He marches out from the wreckage of his ship, his expression steely and determined as he gradually approaches the Supreme Leader with slow, purposeful strides. The man is so much smaller than he’d imagined - frail and scrawny, even - but he knows not to underestimate him by his size. Snoke is a notorious force to be reckoned with, absolutely lethal in the Force. He can already see his deathly smile, so eerie and harrowing, across the respectable distance still separating them. The blood-curdling sight of his hungry expression prompts Ben to stutter to a wary stop, even with several yards remaining to where Snoke stands in waiting.

A long, tense silence ensues.

Snoke’s grin deepens malevolently. “At last,” he speaks, his grating voice reverberating across the empty plain. “The illustrious Ben Solo.”

Ben stares wordlessly back, his jaw set in obstinate defiance.

“Come closer, child. Let me take a look at you,” Snoke beckons sinisterly.

Ben’s feet remain resolutely planted on the salt beneath.

Snoke chuckles darkly. “So much raw power in a single, troubled boy,” he remarks in a purr. “The potential of your bloodline alone is enough to make any master’s mouth water. Nephew of Luke Skywalker... Heir apparent to Darth Vader.”

Ben’s fists clench into distraught balls at his sides.

“Closer, I said,” Snoke summons.

Ben cries out in alarm when his feet are suddenly lifted off from the salty ground, feebly wrestling against the unrelenting pull of Snoke’s hand.

Snoke hauls him across the remaining distance to where he stands, leaving him suspended in the air under his own grasp. “Such spunk,” he comments offhandedly. “I sense much anger and resentment in you, young Solo. Yes... So lonely and misunderstood. Abandoned by the family who should have revered you as their only successor.”

A lone tear escapes from Ben’s eye and trails slowly down the side of his face.

“Instead of treasuring you, they only hid you away, like a dark, wretched secret. Because they didn’t trust you. Because they didn’t have any faith in you. I understand,” Snoke whispers gently. “You are not who they want you to be, Ben Solo. You are so much better.” He beams at him with glee. “You are not your father, or your uncle. You are your grandfather. The new Vader.”

Ben trembles emotionally under the Supreme Leader’s clutch.

Snoke slowly lowers Ben’s feet back onto the ground, sensing the mounting conflict inside him. “Yes,” he coos. “That’s it. You have always empathised with your grandfather’s downfall, haven’t you? I feel the same fear and hatred inside you. It has been driving your actions for as long as you can remember.” He extends a hand to him in open invitation.

Ben, now completely relinquished of Snoke’s influence, stares down at the outstretched palm before him. His hand twitches at his side, magnetically drawn to Snoke’s wrinkled fingers.

“Join me, my young apprentice,” Snoke bids, “and I will harness you into the most powerful weapon in the galaxy.”

Ben holds his breath, his eyes fixed on Snoke’s hand. Slowly, deliberately, his own hand reaches back.

But they never make contact.

With a flick of his finger, Ben fires the blaster tucked into his belt through the Force, striking the Supreme Leader square in the abdomen.

Snoke releases an angry groan and doubles over, yanking back his outstretched arm and clenching the wound in his stomach.

The Praetorian guards all pounce, trapping Ben where he stands with the sharp, deadly blades of their weapons.

He lifts his head to glower spitefully up at the weakened Snoke, his eyes scorching with contempt. “You ruined my life,” he hisses at him vindictively. “I will _never_ bow before you.”

“Then you shall perish with the rest of your family!” Snoke growls malignantly, straightening and splaying both hands out in spidery coils. Force lightning discharges from his fingertips, striking Ben right in the chest.

Ben wails in agony at the merciless attack, crumpling to the ground and writhing helplessly in excruciating torture.

“Hey!”

A solitary stone comes whizzing past the guards and swats Snoke across the temple, disrupting his assault. The lightning from his fingers falters to a stop, allowing Ben a vital moment of reprieve.

The guards abruptly whirl to find the wounded Jedi Knight, staggering across the plain towards them with an ignited lightsaber in one hand.

“If anyone gets to kill him,” she shouts over the distance, “it’s gonna be me!”

Ben, too distressed to laugh, quiveringly raises his head to beg her to retreat. “Rey-“

“Shut it, nerf-herder!” she cuts him off tempestuously. “I said I would get you back to the Resistance - and unlike you, I keep to my word!”

He sigh-groans and drops his head into his arms, too fatigued to argue.

“How delightful,” Snoke chuckles with amusement. “A little Jedi girlfriend to come and try to rescue you. I suppose two Rebel scum will die today.” He complacently takes a step back, clutching at the blaster wound in his abdomen. “Let’s make this entertaining.”


	9. They take their shots, but we’re bulletproof

The tensest, heaviest silence falls upon the salt flats like thick, murky fog.

Ben Solo braces a hand against the ground beside his head and hauls himself up onto his hands, knees, and then feet, staggering to the side with a lumbering skid against the salt. The ground beneath him gleams with blood-red streaks of the underlying soil. In his periphery, he spots four Praetorian guards surrounding him, poised and ready to pounce. Straight ahead, three more face off against Rey, who is weakly shuffling her way across the salt towards them.

His eyebrows lower into an aggressive glare as he unsheathes his lightsaber, the instrument humming with crackles of volatile energy. He points it at the four surrounding guards, sweeping it challengingly from one to the next as they slowly close in on him from all sides.

Behind the guards, Supreme Leader Snoke watches passively from where he stands, hunching frailly against his injury.

Nobody moves for a long time, each participant holding their own breath in anticipation.

Rey is the first to break the silence, and from then on, the floodgates open.

She charges uproariously at the nearest guard, limping clumsily on her injured leg. The guard flings an electro-chain whip at her, which she nimbly dodges with a graceful pirouette. Upon completing her twirl, she ducks beneath the offending guard’s arm and swings her lightsaber at the guard behind him, lashing him across the chest. She spins back around to strike down her first opponent, but he ensnares her lightsaber with his chain whip, effectively seizing her in its grasp. Rey grunts strenuously as he tugs her closer and closer in towards his blade, her leg wound throbbing with every jerk.

At the last inch between the blade and her jugular, she lithely twists out of his chokehold by bowing under his elbow and plunging her lightsaber straight through his middle. As she wrenches her weapon back out from his chest, she simultaneously slings the discarded chain whip through the air. Her eyes follow its trajectory before naturally landing on Ben across the plain.

She absorbs the scene in front of her so thoroughly that it almost appears to be unfolding in slow motion.

There is Ben, steadfastly battling three remaining guards. She practically gawks at the way he fights - his movements so powerful and mighty, the combination of deadly force and brute strength. She can feel the sheer weight of his thrust as he drives his lightsaber deep into one guard’s abdomen. He keeps it there with one arm while he elbows another guard in the face with the other, the force of his attack so immense that it dents the helmet. Yanking his lightsaber out from his first victim, he pivots heavily on his heel and utilises the momentum to swipe the second guard across the neck with his blade, knocking his head clean off his shoulders.

The third guard, enraged by the defeat of his fallen comrades, hurls one of his handheld vibroblades straight at the back of Ben’s head, its razor-sharp point whirling treacherously through the air towards him. Without even seeing it coming, Ben instinctively whips around with an outstretched arm and miraculously immobilises the projectile in midair. Snarling viciously at his attacker, he propels the weapon right back at its wielder, piercing him with it through the neck.

If she had even an inkling of doubt before, it’s been completely snuffed out now. Ben Solo is, without question, exceptionally trained in the Force.

And she may never find out why.

In her reverie, Rey almost entirely forgets about the one guard she’s still supposed to be facing off with.

But it appears as though he has forgotten about her as well, having similarly noticed the deadliness of Ben’s combat skills and assessed him as the greater threat. The guard marches determinedly across the plain and snatches the discarded chain whip from the ground, raising it in calculated aim at Ben’s back.

Rey is already darting across the salt before Ben can even sense the impending danger. “Ben!” she screams, impulsively leaping in front of him.

The guard’s soaring chain whip deals a ruthless blow to Rey’s torso, piercing her through the middle.

She gasps and stumbles backwards, stunned by the attack. Her arm feebly rises to block a second blow of the guard’s weapon, but it is futile against the force of his swing. The blunt end of his whip strikes her harshly across the cheek, knocking her right off her feet.

“No!” Ben rasps, sprinting madly through the salt towards her limp body. He barely spares the final Praetorian guard a glance before outstretching an arm, clenching his hand into a vengeful fist, and crushing him by the helmet.

The guard flops to the ground instantly, landing with a definitive clunk. Blood oozes out thickly from the mangled remains of his helmet, staining the white salt and blending into the red soil.

Ben lands on his knees before Rey and delicately cradles her unconscious head in his lap. “No,” he whimpers hopelessly, stroking her bruised cheek with his thumb. The blood from her wound smears upsettingly against his hands. He despondently drops his head onto her face and presses his lips into her hair.

“It is over, young Solo,” Snoke’s voice croons over his head.

Ben gasps and quickly raises his lightsaber, glowering at him despairingly through glowing, red eyes.

“The girl is gone,” Snoke tells him forebodingly. “You have nothing left to fight for.”

Ben maintains his defensive form through soft, shuddering sobs.

“She was the only other person in the galaxy who cared for your livelihood,” Snoke continues. “Your family abandoned you. The Resistance will only use you for your power, should you choose to fight alongside them. Only I remain. Only I will help you to realise your full potential, to fulfil your destiny.” A disconcerting smile creeps its way across his lips. “Watching you fight was an utter delight. The only reason why I allowed you to clear out my Elite Guard was because I was simply so enraptured by your performance. You truly are a prodigy in the Force.” He extends a hand to him in final invitation, his stare unwavering and insistent. “Join me as my young apprentice, and together, we will be unstoppable.”

Ben doesn’t get the chance to decline.

The ground beside Snoke suddenly erupts, blasting red soil into the air.

Snoke wheels around in alarm to discover three Resistance fighters imminently swooping down on them from the sky.

Ben looks down at Rey’s limp hand to find the homing beacon, glowing bright and true through her fingers. He heaves a weary sigh of relief, lowering his weapon, and slumps exhaustedly against Rey’s unconscious form.

Snoke snarls wrathfully over his shoulder at Ben, livid about the opportunity so abruptly slipping from his grasp. With an incensed growl, he hobbles away, back towards the shelter of his shuttle.

Ben upturns his face to watch the mayhem ensue overhead, numbly gazing up at the explosive laserfire coursing heavily between the battling fighters in the sky. He is so dazed that he doesn’t even register the two Resistance warriors frantically scrambling up to him, shouting Rey’s name with agitated concern.

He collapses against Rey’s body, his head too heavy to remain upright. His hand clasps protectively over hers as he gives in to the blackout.


	10. And you know for me, it’s always you

“Hey, Solo.”

Han Solo looks up from the golden dice he is idly turning between his fingers.

A young Resistance fighter, Finn, is standing expectantly over him, his hands planted firmly on his hips. “Any idea when your boy will be done with his turn in there?” he demands impatiently, jerking his head towards one of the infirmary rooms. “Some of us wanna see how she’s doing, too.”

Han casts his gaze over to the decisively closed door. “Not sure,” he returns gruffly. “Maybe when she wakes up.”

“He’s been in there for hours,” Finn complains unhappily.

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” Han huffs.

Finn sighs with exasperation. “Go in there, and tell him to leave. You know, go out. Get some rest. Take a shower. He’s your son, he’ll listen to you.”

“You have no idea how untrue that is,” Han argues.

Finn shoots him a weary look.

“Alright, alright,” Han surrenders, holding up a hand as he rises from his seat. He stares at the door with trepidation, reluctant to confront the ever-complex quagmire that is his relationship with his son.

When he finally musters the courage to nudge open the door, the young man inside doesn’t seem to react, too engrossed in his own distress to even notice his father’s arrival. “How is she?” Han inquires, as a means of announcing himself.

Ben opens his eyes and lifts his head from his folded arms on Rey’s bedside.

Han trudges tentatively into the room, smiling down at him mildly.

Ben sighs and slides his gaze over to Rey - serene and comatose, as she has been for the past few hours. “She’s stable.”

After the rescue, Ben had awoken to find himself inside the Resistance base in the medical bay, all patched up with bandages and bacta. He had barely bothered to reunite with his long-estranged family before demanding to see Rey and then shutting himself off inside her room ever since.

Han timidly steps over to the young Jedi’s bedside, furtively glancing down at the forlorn, lovesick expression on his son’s normally turbulent features. He would have smiled, if it weren’t for the gravity of the situation. “The nurses say she will be fine,” he informs him gently. “She should wake up within the next couple of days.”

Ben stares longingly at her unconscious face, fighting the urge to stroke her lovingly by the hair in front of his father. “She saved my life,” he whispers dejectedly.

“She’s special,” Han says. “That’s why Luke sent her. He knew.”

Ben frowns inquiringly up at him. “He knew what?”

“That you two would have a connection. He told us he had a vision,” Han divulges. “Of you and her. Together. Fighting side by side, for the Resistance.” He chuckles dubiously. “I was obviously skeptical of that at the time. But now, seeing the way you look at her...” He tilts his head thoughtfully. “I’m not so sure.”

Ben scowls deeply as he absorbs this information, his eyebrows furrowed in contemplation.

“Rey has always been so inspirational to all of us,” Han mentions fondly. “Carelessly cast aside by a family she’ll never know on the wastelands of Jakku, but she never lost her sense of hope.”

Ben heeds Han’s words with severity, gazing down at the girl in front of him in newfound wonder.

“That’s the thing about her,” Han continues. “She never gives up. Reminds me a lot of your Uncle Luke when I first met him. I was so disillusioned, so jaded back then. I would’ve never joined the Rebellion if it weren’t for him.” He takes a thoughtful pause. “Well, that and your mother, of course,” he adds with a chuckle.

When Ben doesn’t respond, Han affectionately folds a hand over his son’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, kid.”

Ben closes his eyes, emotion thrumming through his veins. One day, he might be ready to forgive his father. But not today.

“We missed you,” Han confesses remorsefully.

The two remain there, in that position, for a long, weighty moment of silence.

Eventually, Han removes his hand and saunters out of the room, leaving Ben to stew in his own rampant thoughts.

When Ben reopens his eyes, they land on Rey with renewed resolve. “I’ll come back for you.” He brings her hand to his lips. “I promise.”

* * *

“They’re coming.”

Luke and Leia lock eyes across the room, wordlessly formulating their next plan.

“Shut the door,” Leia orders.

Her best pilot, Poe Dameron, storms urgently up to her, searching her face for an answer before he even verbalises his question. “General. What do we do?”

She glances at Luke again. After receiving his nod of confirmation, she turns to address her Commander. “We need to escape. Get everybody onto the transports.”

“And in the meantime?” he prods.

She smirks at him. “Get into your X-wing and do what you do best.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he readily agrees, pivoting around and hailing the room. “Air team, get into your fighters and let’s finish these suckers! Everybody else, hop on a transport and get the hell outta here! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” he announces, hastily disappearing into the milling crowd.

Leia slides a supportive hand onto the crook of her brother’s elbow and tenderly rests her cheek against his shoulder. “When will this end?”

Luke lifts his chin pensively, peering out at something far away that she can’t see. “Soon,” he vows. “I can feel it.”

“Mom.”

Leia swivels at the sound of Ben’s voice, her eyes landing on him frenetically. Her hand reflexively twitches at the sight of her son marching up to her, aching to scoop him into her arms. But she resists the urge, conscious of scaring him away when she’s just only gotten him back. “Ben,” she murmurs breathlessly, mentally noting how much he’s grown since their last meeting. “How is Rey?”

He stops a few feet in front of her and regards her with a torn expression. It takes a few beats for him, but he inhales deeply, before impulsively enveloping her in a fierce embrace.

Leia gasps, fresh tears springing to her eyes, and then squeezes him tightly back. She thinks back to all the restless nights she spent, desperate to sleep, her soul aching wistfully to hold her son in her arms again. “Oh, Ben,” she sighs, treasuring the feeling of his solid form under her palms.

Ben levels a meaningful look at his uncle over Leia’s shoulder, casting him a tentative smile.

Luke stares back at him knowingly, supplying him with a stoic nod of acknowledgement.

Ben slowly pulls back, gazing between his mother and uncle with peace and purpose. For the first time in his life, he knows what he has to do with unwavering certainty. “So,” he says, straightening his shoulders, “you got an extra helmet for me?”

 

**THE END**


End file.
